About a month ago an old friend and I reconnected for the first time in 18+ years,  We had found each other on FB and had sent emails but seeing her face to face opened up a flood of emotions and questions I had ignored for years.

I had forgotten, for one, how much this person had meant to me at a time when I was lost, how I really love her in a way I haven’t loved before or since.  She was the only person I knew who wasn’t a pothead or alcoholic; she never tried to stop me from tearing down that lost highway, but she did say, in her own subtle way, ‘maybe you’ve got something else to give.’

When I saw her she sang that chorus again to me and for the past four weeks I have been trying to catch up on 20 years of time that should have been spent writing.  It is the greatest feeling to have a cheerleader, someone to say “of course you can do it..”  We will see where that gets me…

Beyond that I began thinking about the past, kind of like an alcoholic does when they are no longer drinking, with a clarity and desire to acknowledge and reconcile. This has been strangely coupled with a series of random phone calls from others in my past, notably my first true love Mindy, and the younger brother of my best friend from high school (he died about ten years ago from some bad heroin). It was strange to talk to them, it was almost as if some harmonic convergence was rallying around to help me find the words I need to order my life on paper…

Greg is dead, Mindy has been married for 15 or 16 years and has a kid ready to graduate high school, most of my other friends are still kicking around, most haven’t strayed too far from home, which is a comfort. I have been here and there but am close to where I started, happy to have my daughters by my side on this new journey, happy that most things have changed slightly, but not really…

I have buried too many people for only standing on the cusp of 40 and have seen that we must embrace each fleeting instance, know the smells and colors of each moment and remember them, record them, in words, in song, in art.  It may sound corny but I feel there is so much I have missed and the days move by in a rush, I have to find someway to keep them close and near.